Sugar and rice growers in Maharashtra are the worst affected by July’s extended dry spell amid a deepening agrarian crisis in Maharashtra.

Barely four per cent area under sugar cultivation — 644 lakh hectare out of 8,861 lakh hectare — has so far been sown, official statistics reveal.

For the rice crop, sowing has so far been undertaken on only 2,360 lakh hectare of the 14,926 lakh hectare usually under rice cultivation, roughly 16 per cent. 

There has been a near total absence of rain in most parts of Maharashtra since the last week of June. Although intermittent showers hit Pune and Konkan on Monday, most other regions continue to be dry.

The weather forecast projects a bleak picture as well. Maharashtra Revenue Minister Eknath Khadse said the Indian Meteorological Department has projected that monsoon would become active in Maharashtra only in the first week of August. Chief Minister Devendra Fadnavis too sounded his concern over the grim forecast in his reply on the farm crisis in the state legislature on Monday.

Conceding that there exists the threat of another season of crop failure, Fadnavis informed the state legislature that resowing might have to be taken up for at least 27 lakh hectare of the sown area across Maharashtra, if the rains continued to play truant till July 31.

The Agriculture Commissioner’s office on Monday submitted latest sowing numbers and estimates for resowing due to the extended drought spell. Incidentally the government’s report has projected that the resowing percentage would be more in Western Maharashtra as compared to the more drought-stressed Vidarbha and Marathwada.

As things stand today, the Agriculture Commissionerate has told the government that over 35 per cent of the sown area in Western Maharashtra might have to be resown, followed by Vidarbha (32 per cent), and Marathwada (16 per cent).

State functionaries said that apart from the dry spell, sugar cultivation has also been hit by the crisis in the industry that has affected crushing. Incidentally, while cane cultivation has taken a big hit, another cash crop cotton, which is more pronounced in the Vidarbha belt, has seen almost 99 per cent sowing.

Sugar millers in Maharashtra have run up arrears of nearly Rs 3,500 crore to cane farmers and have found it difficult to provide fair and remunerative prices, owing to a worldwide drop in retail sugar prices.

Fadnavis on Wednesday announced that the government would provide financial support of Rs 1,500 per farmer up to two hectares for resowing if necessary. “The government has set aside Rs 360 crore towards this aid,” he said. Spelling out the government’s plan for water and fodder supply in arid areas, Fadnavis said that “a contingency plan was in place to face the crisis”.

Official figures also reveal that the total sowing in the food grain category was about 34 per cent, pulses 58 per cent, and oilseeds 89 per cent this kharif season.